


Magpie

by mizael



Category: Kuroko no Basuke | Kuroko's Basketball
Genre: Festivals, M/M, Tanabata
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-11
Updated: 2016-07-11
Packaged: 2018-07-23 12:46:05
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,083
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7463805
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mizael/pseuds/mizael
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In another life, Tetsuya does not have basketball, and yet Ryouta still falls for him all the same.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Magpie

**Author's Note:**

> HAPPY KIKURO DAY i'm crying it's 15 minutes to midnight and i wanted to get this story out before the day ended ;_;  
> aaah the story might be a bit rushed i am so sorry

Ryouta falls in love with a passing summer when he is thirteen, still attached to his sisters’ sides, not yet corrupted by the taste of the mountain peak and those who cannot reach him at the top. He only catches a glimpse in-between the flying paper birds, with trails of beautiful colors behind them, his vision obscured by the festivities and decoration. Summer is a phantom, icy blue and barely noticeable, wearing the most elaborate kimono of snowy fields, where Ryouta tries to chase the color of the sky through the stalls and lanterns of the festival before his parents drag him back to mundane reality.

He thinks there should be some sort of symbolism there, about trying to catch a love that's running away on the first day of the Tanabata festival, where two star-crossed lovers are supposed to meet after a year of separation. He thinks he should stay and search until he's found that phantom. His sisters laugh when he tells them about it.

_Maybe you’ll see him next year, then._

Ryouta looks back at the lanterns when he goes home that night, hand clasped tightly in the hold of his parent’s, and sees nothing but the hustle and bustle of Tokyo in the summertime. The sky has already faded from blue to purple, and then almost to black, obscuring the sun and the light it brings. The shadows in the moon’s wake, though—they remain, as if brought upon by the stagehands that transition each scene slowly, out of sight.

Tanabata closes without incident a month later; Ryouta still has not found summer in the midst, no matter how hard he tries to look. They tear down the decorations quickly enough afterward, but Ryouta can still see the way they blow in the breeze, hiding the sky from sight. It was futile, in the end.

Tanabata may be closing, but Ryouta keeps the memory of his beating heart in his mind, and the childish childhood love that had eluded him.

 _Let’s meet next year_ , he thinks.

He doesn't see summer ever again after that, the snowflakes passing him by and wrapping him in a warm embrace of what could have been. Summer has passed, but, even this, Ryouta knows, is temporary.

* * *

Middle school passes without a fuss, and without too much difficulty, except Ryouta has tasted that which only prodigies can have, and knows that no other food will ever equal the ambrosia he eats with his teammates. When Ryouta is spoiled by gods, the common man no longer entertains him, and that's when the smiles on his face become a facade of kindness and coldness. _Look, but don't touch_ , he says even though he doesn't open his mouth. He is only an ideal that can be dreamed of, never reached.

That is the point of no return, the point where Ryouta only finds meaning in beings who are as good as or even better than him. Everyone else is—pale, dull, lacking color and energy, and Ryouta throws away that which does not benefit him.

Childish fascinations are one of them.

Summer, he thinks, may have been wondrous when he was younger, but ultimately, it is just another season that comes and goes. Summer, he also thinks, may have been full of awe once, but even summer must be common.

Because, when Ryouta next sees summer underneath the shade of a tree, flickering in and out of existence to the point where he feels as though if he blinks, summer will disappear, he only snorts. There’s no mistaking the other boy, of course, because there's no way Ryouta would ever forget the shade of his hair or the way he blends into the sky. Those are colors he has thought about for the last two years, maybe three, but seeing summer now after climbing the mountain top is useless. The sparks he expects to feel upon finding him again do not appear.

Summer is just another boy ( _how disappointing_ , because his life must be boring enough, to warrant disappointment in something he once searched furiously for) and Ryouta walks on past without giving him a second glance.

(That year, it rains on Tanabata, and the magpies do not make a bridge for the lovers to meet once more.)

* * *

By the time he reaches high school, Ryouta has grown apathetic to almost everything. There's something sad to be said about the grayness of his life, the black and white shadows that flit one direction to the next in the same boring pattern, over and over again. It's only when Ryouta sees another Miracle that there are splashes of color in his vision, igniting the oxygen in his veins, burning his body through, and leaving him wanting more of that color he can find from nowhere else and no _one_ else.

He goes to Tanabata because his family wants to, and he tags along with an airy disinterest as he watches the crowds go by. One of his sisters hands him a lantern for the light show later that night, and tells him to be back before it starts in two hours. Ryouta shrugs but promises, and leaves the comfort of his family to wander around in the dusk.

This time, summer appears again, but does not run.

“Kuroko-sensei!” a group of children surround icy blue and snow field kimono, eyes alight in awe of the person in front of them. “Kuroko-sensei, can we stay until the lantern show? Please? _Please_?”

Summer— _Kuroko_ —laughs, the sound ringing like bells, the smile reaching the corners of his eyes and creating dimples as it travels. It is the first sound Ryouta hears, and possibly the only one that he needs to, to fall all over again in the span of a heartbeat.

“Of course we can, but after that we all have to go home, okay?” Kuroko leans forward to shorten the difference between them. For someone his age, he's below average in terms of height, but to the row of kindergartners he tends to, he is a giant.

“Can we light a lantern too? Please, Kuroko-sensei!”

“Of course. We all have to share one, though.”

The children all cheer and laugh, and Kuroko smiles at their antics as they begin fervently whispering to each other about the things they want to write on the group lantern. Ryouta only watches in a sort of hushed awe, too afraid to say anything for fear of breaking the serenity of the moment. It still feels as though Kuroko could disappear at any moment.

Summer is fragile, and Ryouta had taken it for granted when he saw Kuroko last.

He moves to greet him, to introduce himself, to snare the summer phantom before he can disappear again, but just when Ryouta is within reach of his heart thumping summer romance, someone moves to intercept him. A parent, perhaps, or a helper for the children, but Kuroko turns their attention to them and leaves Ryouta, once again, breathless.

Breathless and further, further away.

* * *

If anyone asked Ryouta why he obsessed so suddenly over Kuroko, he wouldn't be able to answer. Rather, Ryouta thinks, he wouldn't be able to provide just _one_ answer, because there are a million things that pop into his head at the mere mention of Kuroko.

It’s like watching a star burn in the middle of space. From a distance—a long distance, thousands of light years away, perhaps millions—it is just another twinkle in the endless galaxy, the endless and wide Milky Way where a drop of water is just that—a drop of water. Up close, however, and Ryouta finally sees the sparks and flames of its surface, the constant burning of helium, the light so bright that it could blind his eyes.

Kuroko is dim, doesn't burn as brightly as Ryouta does, but nor does he want to. Perhaps it is because he is _different_ , someone so far on the other end of the spectrum from a prodigy’s light that Ryouta falls. Or perhaps Ryouta is desperate for that splash of color again, painting water on a monotone canvas in an attempt to make it shine. He doesn't know, exactly, but he knows _enough_ to set his sights so quickly on a boy who has only passed through his life, and never stopped to try and make a mark, because Ryouta had made it all himself.

Knowing his name, of course, is just another piece of fuel to the fire, because now summer is named after its shadows.

* * *

Ryouta knows how to put up a facade, how to fake a smile so real that it would fool millions of people, looking upon the pages of a magazine and having Ryouta’s smile seem as if it were directed towards them and them alone. He also knows how to lead a conversation, how to say just the right things, and he employs all of them when he sees Kuroko again, this time outside of the Tanabata.

“Kuroko-san, right?” he asks outside of a clothing store, the sun in his smile, a chirp in his words. “I’m—”

“Kise Ryouta, I know,” Kuroko gives him a blank look, far too different from the warmth he held when he tended to those children during the festival. “I’m sorry for my bluntness, but I would prefer if you please leave me alone.”

Eh?

“Wh-What?”

“I’m sorry, but you draw a lot of attention. I just wouldn't like to be part of that,” Kuroko turns fully towards him and gives Ryouta a perfect bow, as polite as can be. “If you are picking me up as some sort of dare, morbid curiosity, or just plain boredom, I ask that you don't.”

_How low of an opinion does he have of me?_

“Wait, Kuroko-san, I don't mean—”

“Please, excuse me,” and Kuroko turns a full one hundred and eighty degrees to start walking away, leaving Ryouta gaping in shock after him, having not expected a rejection so upfront.

If Ryouta were truthful, he didn't expect a rejection at all. He had fully expected to wrap Kuroko around his finger, lead him around, and pry all the color from his physique and psyche until Ryouta no longer needed him. Perhaps that was his downfall there, to use a force of nature like Kuroko for his own gains. Summer, after all, stayed strong no matter the month or day, and always returned in a cycle every year.

Ryouta feels his blood rush in his veins, the _thump-thump-thump_ of his heart in his ears, and in a manner of seconds falls even harder for the phantom named Kuroko whose back is getting smaller and smaller by the minute. Ryouta feels as though if he doesn't act now, he may never get this chance again.

“Kurokocchi, please wait!”

* * *

Ryouta doesn't let it go there, feeling as though he has no time left in a world where Kuroko could disappear again at any second. He tries his hardest, his best, and he doesn't remember when was the last time he actually worked hard for something he wanted, rather than having it handed to him on a silver platter.

Kuroko bears with his antics with—at first, irritation but then… _less_ irritation. It's still the same expression, but Ryouta knows when his words are being deflected and when Kuroko is only putting up a front to make it seem like he's deflecting them.

Perhaps nothing will ever give him greater elation in his heart, drunk as he is on puppy love, chasing after fragments of Kuroko because suddenly his world has _color_ again, and not the temporary paint that competition gives him in the presence of other prodigies. Kuroko is… painstakingly normal. He is the exact description of what Ryouta hates most about people, but Kuroko is also one of a kind, and _so much different_ from everyone else.

His sarcastic jabs, his remarks, his politeness, his _patience_ for Ryouta when Ryouta does not quit. It’s refreshing. Or perhaps Ryouta is just too smitten.

When summer rolls around again, and if Tetsuya so much as asked, Ryouta would happily become the magpie that Tetsuya treads on to get to the other side of the Milky Way.

(If, perhaps, Ryouta could dream more, then he’d rather be the cow-herder waiting on the riverbank, arms wide to accept the silk-weaver named Kuroko Tetsuya into his embrace, and hold him there for as long as the day lasts until they part again for the next year.)


End file.
